BY TOM CAIAZZA
Staff Writer
MATAWAN – Police opposed a Borough Council resolution May 16 approving the hire of special officers, and alerted the council to a list of complaints that include insufficient manpower, unreliable cruisers, dilapidated facilities, and firearms that either do not work or are dangerously inconsistent.
Patrolman Patrick Walker said that the police department was against the hiring of special officers for what he said was a severely understaffed department.
“We are completely, to a member, opposed to the idea of lower-class officers,” Walker said.
The resolution was tabled without an action date to better assess the needs of the department.
Special officers go through a less intensive police academy program and are not given the same police privileges that standard officers enjoy. While on duty, specials are given all the police powers of a standard officer, but those duties are suspended while not on duty; unlike standard officers, who possess arresting and firearm possession privileges at all times.
According to Officer Christopher Stark, president of PBA Local 179, the department, due to retirements, is currently running two officers short of its traditional 22 members. He said it has taken a toll on police services, and that hiring specials would not be sufficient for the department to function properly and safely.
“We need extra help on top of what our department is supposed to be,” Stark said. “Don’t hire two specials and say we have a 22-man department, because that’s not true.”
Chief Robert McGowan said that he believes the council never meant to fill vacancies with specials. The specials would be used when certain situations or events required more officers.
He said he has been in contact with the council since January to discuss filling the two posts.
“I’ve been working with the mayor and the council, trying to bring the numbers up,” McGowan said. “The issue is money.”
The council is waiting until the state offers an extraordinary aid figure before finalizing its budget.
McGowan said that he was not surprised that the officers attended the meeting. He said he knew for a few days that officers were planning to speak about hiring specials, but was unaware that complaints would reach further than that topic.
“I would have liked the opportunity to sit down with them [PBA 179],” McGowan said, adding that he would have told them about his correspondence with the council.
“I could have relieved their fears,” McGowan said.
Borough Administrator Fred Carr said that the council and chief were already planning to include money in the capital budget for the guns, cars and officers, but that the PBA did not know that before making their comments.
Carr said the money was in the capital budget for replacement of firearms, and two police cruisers were already purchased this year. The council also planned to beef up the personnel.
“All the things they asked for were already in the works,” Carr said. “It’s not as if nobody was listening.”
Stark offered kudos to council President Meghan Mullaney and Councilman William Malley for saying that the borough is not hiring specials as a way to downsize the department.
As chairman of the council’s Public Safety Committee, Mullaney said that she would take the officers lead and look into manpower and vehicle issues.
Crime stats on rise
Stark said that the misconception that Matawan does not have its share of crime is wrong.
“We’re not Jersey City, we’re not Asbury Park, but that doesn’t mean that we’re Mayberry,” Stark said.
Stark said that according to the Unified Crime Report, an assessment of crime compiled by the FBI, Matawan has seen a dramatic increase in crime, especially violent crime, in the first 10 months of 2005 compared to the same period of 2004. Statistics for the rest of 2005 have not yet been released.
In that time robberies have gone from zero to seven. Assaults have increased from 58 to 95 and violent crimes went from three in 2004 to 17 in 2005. It is an increase of 466 percent.
It is during this time that the department dropped from 22 to 20 officers.
The overall crime index, a comparison of violent crime to population, for January to October of 2005 was 133. In comparison, the same number for all of 2004 was 112.
“It is a direct result of losing two officers and not having the manpower on the road,” Stark said.
Officer Andrew Marsala worried that hiring specials would take jobs away from standard officers, and they should not be hired to replace standard officers.
“As long as they bring us back to full staff, that is fine,” Marsala said.
Marsala told the council that being shorthanded has affected the ability for those in the department to do their jobs.
He cited an influx of gang- and drug-related activity over the last year that the current staff is unable to efficiently handle.
“We’ve developed great intelligence but we can’t act on it,” Marsala said.
Marsala said that the intelligence collected says that, “Matawan is the place to be to buy drugs.”
Marsala said that two-man shifts are the cause, and that there have been instances where officers have had to go on calls alone because the other officer on duty had to remain at the department to guard prisoners.
There was even an instance where there were so many prisoners arrested in one night that Marsala had to